One Day After Peace: A film by Robi Damelin

Could you forgive somebody who has done you wrong? Performed such an egregious act that it leaves your scarred for the remainder of your days?  The notion of reconciliation is explored in a fascinating and moving film by Robi Damelin.

Budget Breakthroughs: Nonprofit Strategies for Resolving a Funding Crisis

When faced with a funding crisis, you might panic, or ignore it. You might blame others, yourself, or the economy. You might throw yourself into organizing a big event or apply for every grant possible.

Building Momentum at Tides

Innovation and impact are words that we hear more and more often these days in the nonprofit world.  The truth is, we need more of both in an era of stagnant foundation endowments and besieged individual donors reeling from recession. Yet innovation and impact are imprecise terms that are hard to both qualify and quantify. What distinguishes innovative from interesting?  To jumpstart the conversation, I am delighted to announce the inaugural issue of Momentum, a new quarterly publication of Tides dedicated to advancing thought leadership and action in support of progressive social change.

Beyond Politics: Navigating a New Reality

Earlier this month, the Tides Learning Community hosted a call with Greenlining Institute's Samuel Kang and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities' Ellen Nissenbaum about the ongoing debt ceiling and deficit reduction talks, and the upcoming deadlines from the joint congressional committee.   In addition to providing historical background and fiscal context, Nissenbaum warned of the dangers of possible outcomes that rely too heavily on spending cuts without generating new revenue.

Dave Eggers, a Voice of Witness

This past August, the acclaimed author and educator Dave Eggers—best known as the author of seven books including  What is the What, as well as the founder of both McSweeney's and  826 Valencia—visited the Tides Learning Community for a  conversation with Tides CEO Melissa Bradley.  Eggers focused on a more recent project called Voice of Witness, a nonprofit book series that depicts human rights crises around the world through the stories of the men and women who experience them.  Read on for highlights and photos from their conversation.

We're Just Getting Started: Preventing Massive Budget Cuts

Remember the nasty national deficit debate back in August? The fight is not over. President Obama and Congress punted the issue to a committee charged with reducing the federal deficit by $1.5 trillion over the next decade.  The most critical questions the Gang of Twelve must address is how much more cuts can Americans bear? What are the alternatives to massive cuts?  In an effort to shed more light on this issue, Tides and the Greenlining Institute will co-host the first of a series of conference calls, “Beyond Politics: Navigating a New Reality,” with keynote speaker Ellen Nissenbaum, Senior Vice President for Government Affairs for the Center on Budget & Policy Priorities.

One Heart World-Wide Battles Maternal Mortality

Earlier this month, Arlene Samen and Carlos Tapadera Concheño of One Heart World-Wide visited the Tides Learning Community in San Francisco to speak about their excellent work in teaching good birth practices and preventing maternal mortality in Tibet, Mexico, and Nepal.  Samen originally launched the One Heart program in Tibet, and over ten years, the number of women who died in childbirth annually dropped from 33 to zero.

Darian Rodriguez Heyman's Top Ten Fundraising Tips

Darian Rodriguez Heyman, former Executive Director of the Craigslist Foundation and editor of the new book Nonprofit Management 101: A Complete and Practical Guide for Leaders and Professionals, offered his Top Ten Fundraising Tips last week to the Tides Learning Community.  Though he joked about recognizing many faces in the room and wondered aloud what these nonprofit leaders still hoped to learn about fundraising, Darian's presentation offered ideas appropriate for emerging leaders and seasoned nonprofit professionals alike.

Show Me the Money: Nonprofits Talking Taxes

Did you walk on the sidewalk, drive on a road, eat in a clean restaurant, or drink clean water from your faucet today?  Were you thinking: “What a great day to be a taxpayer!”?  We often forget the structures and services we depend on everyday are paid for by taxes.    However, over the past several years, with this year being the worst, the word “taxes” has been surgically sown to the word “cuts.”  In this guest post, Kim Klein and Anne Ryan offer their thoughts on the California State Budget and what nonprofits can do to focus on revenue.

Corporate America Untaxed: Tax Avoidance on the Rise

America’s richest multinational corporations are avoiding $60 billion a year in taxes by hiding $1 trillion in profits overseas.  All the while, Fortune 100 corporations alone received close to $90 billion in taxpayer-funded federal contracts. And yet Congress is looking to cut the deficit by cutting Medicare, Social Security, food safety, education and health without collecting another dime from these huge, wealthy corporations.  It’s unpatriotic, it’s unfair and we can’t afford it.  It should be illegal.